Kadish Workshop in Law, Philosophy, and Political Theory: Jennifer Lackey, Northwestern University

Stories That Wrong and Stories That Repair

Stories are as important as they are ubiquitous, depicting everything from the origin of the universe to the driving force behind an isolated act by a single individual. But stories do not just depict what has actually occurred—they can also exert tremendous power over what does or even can occur. How the unfolding of events is presented in a narrative, for instance, or the layers of a person’s character are sketched, can have monumental consequences for the people involved in them. In this talk, I will focus on one dimension of this, exploring how stories can epistemically wrong a person in life-altering ways and yet also be the source of the corresponding epistemic reparations that are called for in response.

About Jennifer Lackey:

Jennifer Lackey is the Wayne and Elizabeth Jones Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law (courtesy) at Northwestern University, Founding Director of the Northwestern Prison Education Program, and Senior Research Associate at the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science at the University of Johannesburg.

Lackey’s research is primarily in social epistemology with a current focus on epistemic issues within the American criminal legal system. She is the author of over 60 articles and three books, including her recent Criminal Testimonial Injustice, which won the 2024 North American Society for Social Philosophy Book Award. She is also the editor of five volumes and editor-in-chief of two journals in philosophy, Philosophical Studies and Episteme. Lackey is the winner of the 2024 Humanitas Award, 2023 Horace Mann Medal, and the Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement and Contribution. She was elected President of the American Philosophical Association’s Central Division from 2021–2022, was recently named the 2025 holder of the Spinoza Chair at the University of Amsterdam, and has received grants and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

About the Workshop:

A workshop for presenting and discussing work in progress in moral, political, and legal theory. The central aim is to provide an opportunity for students to engage with philosophers, political theorists, and legal scholars working on normative questions. Another aim is to bring together people from different disciplines who have strong normative interests or who speak to issues of potential interest to philosophers and political theorists.  

The theme for the Fall 2024 workshop is “Disagreement.”

This semester the workshop is co-taught by Josh Cohen and Véronique Munoz-Dardé.